Jolly July

It's usually a good month of quilting when I have two Finally Finishes but I surprised myself with three. Late last night I finished hand sewing the binding of one of these--can you guess which one? I think it might be my favorite finish. Looking at my past July Posts, it seems that it’s a very productive month for me despite it being very hot and inhumid and doesn’t prevent me from using my Plush stash again. I’m numbering these quilts in the order that the flimsies were finished which means the top two made with Marcia Derse fabrics are #1 and #3 and the one in the middle on the bottom is #2. All of these were made from scraps and stash, all new projects, no UFOs and inspired by the Squirrels and Eunice who live in my Studio. There are similarities between them either by size, fabrics or pattern. Hopefully, I can be brief in providing details of my Jolly July.

The only plans I made for July was that I couldn’t use any Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics, so I decided to spend some time with my Marcia Derse stash. These two, #1 and #3 are Patchwork Throws since they are backed with Plush and both finished by the third week in July.

Since I had a lot of strips and HSTs in my Marcia Derse scrap box and enjoyed making my KF String Quilt finished last month, I decided to make another one using the same QAYG technique.

This time, I QAYG HSTs on 15” squares of batting with one side sewn with mostly black and white fabrics with a color HST and the other side with color fabrics and a black/white HST. Once sewn, they were trimmed to 14.5”. I made twenty-four HST and they were set to create either a black/white or color diamond and they were much easier than the HRTs I made with the KF fabrics. Normally when I back with a plush fabric, there isn’t any batting in between but since these are QAYG blocks, I used a very thin plush with lines to make it less heavy but this definitely has a weighted blanket feel. I machine quilted with straight lines along the block seam lines with a steel gray polyester thread. For the binding I had hoped to use a Vanessa Christensen Ombré Stripe in Citronickle but sadly did not have enough. Fortunately I found another Citronickle print in my Marcia Derse stash which accented the quilt quite nicely. This quilt #1 measures 56” x 84” approximately. This will be my throw for me in the Family Room as I found when I was spending a lot of time there while my Hubby was recovering from his two back surgeries that there was only one Patchwork Throw and it belong to him and was using it.

I thought I share a before and after pic of my Marcia Derse scraps and as you can see String Quilt #1 hardly made a dent.

Earlier in July I had a dental appointment which meant I could go to a wonderful quilt shop near there which carries modern fabrics and they had the latest Marcia Derse Sketchbook fabric lines. I picked up a few fat quarters and yardage with the idea of making another quilt, like my Cicada Colada made last year and given away, by adding it with the other black, brown, taupe, and gray prints from my Marcia Derse and Lonni Rossi stash.

After I made the #2 Flimsy which you will read about later, I decided to use the same big block pattern wince I thought would showcase the prints better, especially the focus print which you can see I used for the plain blocks.  These blocks also measure 14.5” square and I needed 20 squares to make a 54” x 70” Patchwork Throw.

The size of this throw was determined by a wonderful piece of Plush which has been in my stash for several years and been wanting to use. It is thicker than the other Plush in my stash, has a wonderful feel and geometric design and what I now call Plushcious. This may be an instance where the back came before the flimsy. When I ordered this Plush online, I don’t know why I only ordered two yards which for a tall family, we need our lap quilts to be at least 80” long. Because of this, I now always purchase Plush at least 2.5 or 3 yard lengths. Since I already had my sewing machine set up to machine quilt for plush with the #1 Strip Quilt, #3 was finished before #2. I machine quilted with both horizontal and vertical lines with the Steel Gray Polyester thread and this time I was able to use Vanessa Christensen Ombre Stripe in Black. I have now used her Ombre Stripe for binding in three of my Marcia Derse Quilts and they seem to pair well with each other.

While I was sewing the #1 Stripe Quilt, Eunice, my Quilt Tormentor who lives inside my head and likes me to sew the right thing which is usually an UFO but this time she was reminding me of a ten year old stash of French General prints, mostly Petite Odile. These fabrics were released in 2012 and I remember buying yardage of these prints at a July Sidewalk Sale at least ten years ago. I really love the focus print on the right side and somehow found a Charm Pack back then. I love the children print and the colors have a vintage vibe. This stash has made an appearance on several Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenges but I never made a cut. I thought maybe I could make a wallhanging to satisfy Eunice but once I started playing with the stash, when I should have been focused on my #1 Stripe Quilt, I decided to make a larger quilt to use up more of the stash. I realize that sometimes my quilts are large because I want to use up as much stash as possible. 

Since I had yardage and a charm pack, I thought I could make a modified version of Quilting Jet Girl’s Bundle Buster Pattern which is one of my favorite patterns. I think I made at least five quilts using this pattern and thought I knew it well….which it turns out I didn’t. After the flimsy was made and thinking the construction of the pieced blocks were sewn like a log cabin block, I realized I forgot to add another charm square plus row. But I still liked the way it looks and it accented the plain blocks with the focus print nicely. I liked it so well that I decided to use this big block pattern for the #3 Marcia Derse quilt. These blocks also finished 14.5” square and twenty-four blocks were made to make a 56”x84” quilt.

We were at the GP house this weekend and didn’t think I would have time to machine quilt #2 but as luck would have it, I forgot there were 31 days in July so I spent Tuesday and Wednesday finishing it. There was no problem in choosing the backing since I already had a six yard piece of the Button print. As for the thread for the vertical wavy line quilting spaced 1” apart, I knew I wanted to use my recent purchase of Star Thread in Mother Goose, a golden tan, which is a favorite and used it when I first started quilting. I had run out of this thread and saw in an online chat quilt that this thread is still available so I purchased two spools.

 I always like to use either a stripe or mini check for binding and remember I had this print in my stash. It used to be in the French General bin but I had removed it years ago when I saw it wasn’t a French General print. Fortunately I found it and thought it was special enough for me to hand sew the binding down. I still have quite of bit of French General fabric left and this time I do have a plan to make a wall hanging.

Yes, this is my favorite finish for July mainly because I finally used my French General stash and the colors are perfect for the Family Room where most of the red/blue quilts are located.

Since I mentioned that #1 and #2 quilts are for my Family Room and if you’re wondering where #3 will be going, it’s for the Family Room also. I gifted it to the Master Quilt Holder who is recovering quite nicely from his two back surgeries—I thought he was Plushcious worthy. He uses his Big Blinky Bill Blankie a lot in the Family Room and it’s almost five years old so he deserves a new one. Plus, I will enjoy looking at it whenever I’m in the Family Room.

I’m pretty sure that there will be no more finishes left in me for July and the only plans for August is not to use any Marcia Derse or Plush fabrics. As for my KFC hiatus, it may end because the August Collective is being shipped out next week so I am looking forward to receiving twenty new fat quarters. But then I’m ready to do some Holiday sewing since I’m pattern and stash ready. There was a time for many years that I absolutely hated August because we could never take vacations then because I worked for a community college and we had to prep for the new school year and also for the many years I had to get the boys ready for school too. I’m enjoying August now with it’s 31 days which means an extra day for quilting. I’m hoping it’s going to be an Awesome August.

Two More Kaffe Fassett Finally Finishes

I'm being a little old school here by referring to these two finishes as Kaffe Fassett and not KFC but I didn't want you to think this Post has something to do with me eating two buckets of fried chicken.  Despite there being less than a week left in June, I decided I would end this month with these two lovelies. The bottom right String Quilt was a new project started at the end of April and the one on the upper left corner was a flimsy made last Christmas Day. Both of these are what I call Patchwork Throws since they are backed with plush but one of them had batting in the middle which technically would be considered a quilt. The crazy thing about these two is that they were finished during the past few days right in the middle of a heat wave. Thankfully, I sew in the lower level (basement) and it’s quite cool down there.

Kate/The Last Homely House had posted a YouTube video of her making a String Quilt and when I first saw it I thought I’ve already made several during the past few years so “No.” But after I was organizing the scraps leftover from my Kaffe Fassett Dazzling Diamond Quilt, I changed my mind. I did pull other strips from the KF scrap stash and did cut more strips from KFC fabrics purchased recently. I made my string blocks differently than Kate by sewing them or QAYG onto scrap batting rectangles measuring 6.5”x9.5”. I sewed 84 rectangles in two diagonal directions to make 21 diamond blocks measuring approximately 18” x 12”. This was a great way to use up scrap batting plus using half-wound bobbins which I have quite a few. This was a traveling project which I could work on during our few and far between stays at the GP house as well as at home.

I decided my diamond block layout would be horizontal, much like my Wensleydale Quit. When sewing each block together, I considered color and fabric distribution. Once all of the diamond blocks were sewn and ready for layout, I separated them into two piles, one warm and one cool for color to make sure one fabric or color were not concentrated in one area. I didn’t want to sew a pieced backing with my KF stash and since the width was only 54”, I thought the cheddar butter yellow Minky in my stash would be perfect. I still was able to do light straight line quilting along the block edges because of the QAYG method and, yes, the combination of batting and Minky makes for heavier quilt which I’m sure would be extra snuggly during the Winter. I used a yellow polyester thread for machine quilting and the binding is the red KFC caterpillar stripe. 

The KFC String Quilt measures 54” x 84” (approximately.) I should mention that I still have a lot of strips and scraps left as well as scrap batting. Oh well, that’s the circle of Scraps.

I briefly mentioned the making of the KFC Fat Quarter Flip Flimsy made on Christmas Day in this Post. The pattern is a variation I made of  Fat Quarter Shop Fat Eighth Flip Pattern which is a free pattern available on their website and is perfect for the large scale prints.

I received the February 2024 Kaffe Fassett Collective Fat Quarter Bundle on Christmas Eve and the next day the flimsy was a finish. Of all of the KF projects made since last Fall when I discovered Kate/The Last Homely House, this is the first time I used exclusively KFC fabrics which are recent releases. The other projects I used stash  and some were collected over twenty years ago. I did have a brief hiatus when I did not purchase any new KF fabrics so I was unaware of it now being called KFC fabrics. I am slowing building up a nice stash of KFC fabrics now. My favorite steel gray Zig Zag double plush was used, no batting, and simple straight line machine quilt 1” away from the block edges using a gray polyester thread which is truly a Patchwork throw. Brandon Mabley’s black/white stripe fabric was used for the binding so it may not be official KFC. My KFC Fat Quarter Flip Patchwork Throw measures 56” x 76” (approximately).

These two definitely were not made for a Summer Day but lovely to look. I am in no hurry to wrap myself up and snuggle in them; I can wait at least six months for cold Winter days. I now have made five KF/KFC projects so far this year and may need a hiatus from the KFC stash. Should I refer to my other fabrics now as De-Kaffe? Big laughs here….

The Master Quilt Holder had his second Kyphoplasty surgery for his spine yesterday and is recovering quite nicely so we will be visiting the GP house this weekend. This means I need to clean up the studio, return comments and organize my next projects. I really would like to take a break from sewing but the KFC and De-Kaffe fabrics are calling my name.

Linking up with Kathleen McMusing/TGIFF

Ravel Hearts/Glowing Hearts Quilt Along

Hoo-ray! The Parade I’ve been waiting for is finally here and I am ready to participate. You may think by looking at my Ravel Hearts quilt that I’m in the wrong parade, but I’m not. I did make the nine hearts as in the mmmquilts Glowing Hearts pattern but as I confessed to Sandra, after participating in last years Luminous Layers QAL with the eight Sawtooth Stars made, I was still starstruck and couldn’t pass up making another one.

I tested and made two Hearts last March, one in a light colorway and one in a dark colorway and then sent Sandra a mock-up of how my quilt would look. I have to admit the dark 6.5” HST reminded me of Cat ears, which I thought was funny and will explain later in this Post. The plan was made to make four light blocks and five dark blocks and I did not start sewing the remaining blocks until mid May. It was when I was placing the light blocks on my design boards that I realized a Sawtooth Star could be made by changing the orientation of the heart blocks.

Since I hadn’t made the dark blocks yet, I play around in PicMonkey to see how this would look first with the light blocks forming the Sawtooth Star and thought it looked better with the dark blocks. This meant I would have to cut more patches to make one more Light Block but it was worth it. I really love the way this layout looked and pondered if I should warn Sandra that rebel mode has struck. I did and was glad when she responded with “You Go Girl” or could it be Canadian for “I’m Gonna Get You”?

Here’s a pic of the Free Spirit E Bond fabrics I used for Ravel Hearts, which the name was inspired by the Ravel Unravel Ink Text print. The top gray print was what I had planned to use for the sashing. I’ve had this fabric in my stash for several years and was hoping I would be able to use it for this year’s QAL and the pattern made great use of these wonderful prints. I looked up the definition of Ravel and it means a cluster which is serendipitous since the Sawtooth Star does look like a cluster of Hearts.  

I added a two-inch black border to Ravel Hearts making it a 40” square. I machine quilted it with my favorite quadrant straight lines in CT variegated gray thread on top with a steel gray on the bottom. The Black backing was found in my stash. This was such a nice and welcomed change from all o the larger quilts I made so far this year.

Along with making my Ravel Hearts quilt, I also had to plan my annual collage of quilts made for Celebrating a Famous Canadian Birthday which includes designing a logo. Since this was going to be Sandra’s ninth QAL, I thought the theme should be a Black Cat since it has nine lives, just like the nine Hearts in this quilt.

When I was searching online for a Cat image, I happened upon this one—it was too perfect and so mmmeow since this looks like Sandra, doesn’t it? This reminds me of the mmmicked logo I made for the Rainbow Neighbor QAL with Sandra as MMMaleficent which I don’t think you will find online…yet.

From the bottom of my nine Hearts, I am once again thanking Sandra for hosting another fun QAL. It was another great pattern and weren’t the Hearts such a clever make? When I was gathering my notes for this project, one of my thoughts when deciding to make this quilt was naming it “What Heart Thou” and list nine attributes I aimed my heart to be; Happy, Strong, Sweet, Brave, Big, Healthy, Tender, Kind and, of course, Rebel. This could be a someday project and I would make each Heart in different shades of one color. I think Sandra already did this as a Scrap Challenge. As I’ve done in my past QAL Posts, I like to mention looking forward to next year’s QAL and suggesting a pattern—I think a MMMystery Quilt would be fun and a great possibility for me to follow the pattern—-mmmeow!

You can view the parade of Glowing Hearts Quilts and Pattern Here!

UFOs with Eunice

Eunice is my Studio Tormentor who in my head tells me to sew the right thing which usually means an UFO, a very old UFO. I put Eunice in time out last year plus Country Threads did not have a 2024/25 Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge so there was no project list  and my output this year is lower than normal. Usually at this time of year I had 10 Finally Finishes as opposed to only six so far this year. I pretty much enjoyed making the quilts made and wanted to continue but Eunice had other plans. This week I have two Finally Finishes and two Flimsies from the UFO pile and also one flimsie made several weeks ago before I finished my quilt for mmmquilts Glowing Hearts Quilt Along.These UFOs include one flimsie made over twelve years ago and two which the blocks were sewn last year but felt longer. I thought I’d do a short recap in the order of when they were finished.

If there’s a UFO which bugs me, it’s the one with the blocks made and ready to be made into a Flimsy. I finished three flimsies and this Heather Ross Hexie quilt was the first one. For some reason because I quilted my QAL quilt, I wanted to work on this one because the Hexies and Triangles were die-cut  for what felt like were years but to my surprise I did this last year. Speaking of Tormentors, Susan, my Downunder Tormentor made a Heather Ross hexie quilt last year and I was inspired to make one after I saw hers. After all I had wonderful prints in my Heather Ross stash which has been sitting in my stash for too long and large hexies were perfect. I’ll write more about this quilt once it’s a Finally Finish and I need to ask Sue’s permission to include her wonderful quilt in my Post.

My two Finally Finishes are these two door quilts; the Marcia Derse on the left and the Asian Cranes on the right.

• Marcia Derse aka Rose quilt (can you see my name in the center using the letters from her Alphabet panel) was a flimsy I made over four years and I was tired of seeing it hanging from one of the cabinet doors in my studio. I wanted this to hang this on the hallway door leading to the lower level, aka basement, studio. I did a combination machine and hand quilting over the past few months and the binding was sewn down this past weekend. The Rose Door Quilt measures 22”x38”.
• The Asian Cranes was a flimsy made over twelve years ago and would have remained a UFO if Demando had not requested I make a door quilt to cover the hallway electrical panel at his girlfriend’s house. His request was to use colorful fabric and something Asian and I knew I could use this flimsy by reworking it to fit the needed dimension. It helped that I knew his girlfriend’s favorite color is purple. I did simple straight grid quilting using a CT Essential Thread in Violet. Asian Cranes Door Quilt measures 22”x 36” and I’m hoping it’s the right size. It might be a 1/2” too short and I know how fussy Demando can be.

This is the one UFO which bugged me the most as the blocks were started around ten years and there are several reasons why I don’t like the pattern which I’ll explain when I write a Post after it is quilted. This is the Jack and Jill pattern inspired by Missouri Star Quilt Company and most of the fabric is Marcus Bros. Aunt Grace Ties One On. Although I had more fabric to make a larger quilt, I decided to make only a 40” square.

I have to say this is my favorite flimsy finish since it is the Fresh Air Quilt pattern designed by Mary Etherington/Connie Tesene of Country Threads. This is one of the great patterns featured in their Fresh Starts Quilts book, 2022. I cut the patches in 2022 but did not sew the blocks until December 2024. The fabrics used were Amanda Herring’s Jane Austen and Brenda Ratliff’s One Room Schoolhouse. This flimsy measures 64” square.

While Hubby is still recuperating from his back problems, my late night downstairs sewing/TV time has been curtailed, so I’ve been spending time in my upstairs Fiber Room which is where my wool stash is kept. One of the things I wanted to work on was reducing my wool stash so I’ve already made quillies (wool circles) and thought I would try rug hooking. I finished my first piece which measures 14”x16”, die cut most of the strips and I still on the fence if I’m “hooked”. My first piece looks like it was punched rather than hooked which has neater lines. I finally improved, as you can see on the very tiny lower right rectangle. I didn’t like the backing I used, it may have been tufting instead of Monks Cloth plus still have a lot to learn about the hoops and needle. I do know I don’t plan on hooking large pieces and will stick to small projects. 

I do like making the quillies but there’s only so may mats and pincushions to be made. There’s always Wool Applique.

I am looking forward to the Celebration of a Famous Canadian’s Birthday parade feature the many Glowing Hearts Quilts made. See you on Sunday, June 15th!

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Daydream Dicey Log Cabin Quilt

My Daydream Dicey Log Cabin Quilt was completed in March but I didn't want to post about it until I could take a photo of it with the darling Granddaughter. After all it was made in celebration of her Eighth birthday and another one to add to her ever expanding collection. The delay in finally posting was due to not being able to visit the GP House for seven weeks and even though we've made two visits since then, there wasn't time or the weather and or the darling Granddaughter wasn’t cooperating to taking a photo. Well, today the stars finally aligned.

Back in January, I received my Ruby Star Society Quarterly Club of fat quarters from their latest collections. There has been a very few times I actually made something from these Club packets, normally they sit on my shelf for way too long. I knew I wanted to make something right away with HSTs rather than the usual strips and squares.

I've been collecting Moonkin Stitchery patterns for the past year and after looking through them, I decided the Dicey Log Cabin pattern would be perfect. It is available as a free download Here, (not an affiliate link).

I added a few more fat quarters from my Ruby Star Society, Free Spirit and Art Gallery stash since I wanted more larger focus prints. I also thought the gray prints I found in my search would accent the pink, teal and gold prints nicely.

This is a fun and easy pattern but I want to mention that it's very important that all of the blocks are sewn and cut the same way as per the pattern. It's no surprise the angled-challenge quilter, which I am, made the first block wrong.

I made seventy blocks, 7x10 layout to make a 56" x 80" quilt.

I machine quilted with straight and wavey lines in Silver Aurifil thread. The backing was a gray and white stripe print from my stash and the binding was a gray plus print. I named this quilt Daydream Dicey Log Cabin based on the pattern name and because it was a dreami project which I worked on over days at a time rather than all at once.

Finally, a pic of the darling Granddaughter with her birthday quilt. The Master Quilt Holder did an excellent job of getting her to sit for this photo. She does not like having her photo taken but she does love her quilts (that’s what I tell her).

I do have another quilt finish for mmmquilts Glowing Hearts Quilt Along but won't be posting it until June 15th, the Famous Canadian Birthday Parade.  I am pretty pleased with already having this fun make finished but I can wait to share.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

KFC Dazzling Diamond Quilt

It seems I sew through a Kaffe Fassett (KF) phase (not a rut) which I then have to force myself to make quilts with the other fabric lines in my stash. I call this a hiatus and much to my surprise the last quilt I made using KF prints was almost seven years ago, although there were some smaller quilts made using only shot cottons and stripes. My love for KF  fabrics was reignited by Kate/The Last Homely House whom I discovered last October and have now finished six KF quilts since then and have two more in the waiting wing. Since January I had two epic KFC (Kaffe Fassett Collective) finishes, Tumbling Block Quilt and Terry Rowland Scrap Challenge Quilt (just finished less than a month ago) and I now have a third one with the KFC Dazzling Diamond Quilt. One of the things I’ve learned since starting this new KFC phase is, if you live in the States like me, KFC has nothing to do with Fried Chicken but is the acronym for Kaffe Fassett Collective which includes Brandon Marley and Philip Jacob’s fabrics. My stash of fabrics includes KF fabrics purchased well over twenty years ago and now I have been having a buying spree of purchasing KFC fabrics to stash/catch up.

I wasn’t planning on making another diamond quilt with the leftover diamonds and strips from previous projects and thought a One Thousand Pyramid quilt would be different and fun to make. But, I didn’t want to sew long rows of triangles and thought the layout would be more interesting with 4”x8” blocks (approx.) instead; I just needed to make 422 which were easy to sew since I used my Sizzix Isosceles Triangle die. Of course, I needed to cut more fabric from my stash and it’s nice I have new scraps for the KFC scrap stash now.

I have to mention that being the angle-challenged quilter and having never taken a Geometry class, I learned the Isosceles Triangle is different than the Equilateral Triangle (which I thought my die was) because the two sides are equal but the base is not. I’ve lost count of how many times I sewed the wrong sides together which resulted in the blocks looking like this. Even once I was aware of this, I still made mistakes.

While sewing these blocks and not looking forward to laying out 242 4”x8” blocks, I came up with the idea of sewing two blocks together which then diamonds would be created and it would also give the quilt some resting spots. It was much easier to layout 121 bocks and I wasn’t so concerned with the same fabrics being close together. There are three different types of diamonds, one made with the same fabrics, two different fabrics and ones created by four HRT blocks which really gave Dazzling Diamond its name.

I machine quilted straight and meandering lines using #3817 Auril #50 variegated thread for the top and #2610 Blue Gray for the bottom.

I was really tempted to purchase yardage of a KFC print for the backing but decided to use yardage of two Philip Jacob’s prints, Shaggy Poppy and Morning Glory along with KF Vintage Bead Stripe Bead I had for way too long in my stash. Common sense prevailed since I realized I could purchased more KFC fat quarters and yardage with the $75+ saved. I just recently learned that a quilt shop only 15 mins away from the GP House has a fabulous KFC inventory so I am so looking forward to making a visit. Am I the only one when going fabric shopping and the hubby sits by the register, secretly asks the  staff to announce the cost as only being $10? I may have fooled him a few times.

Once again, I used a variety of different shades of the caterpillar stripe for the binding and were alternated between, blue, red and orange/green. I just love the way it looks against the many KFC prints and I will be on the hunt for more.

The KFC Dazzling Diamond Quilt measures 84” square and is now hanging over the bannister along with the Terry Rowland quilt.

Good news on the Master Quilt Holder who has been missing in action for awhile. On this beautiful day, He was feeling better to help me hang up the Dazzling Diamond Quilt outside over the screened room. I am jokingly saying a Two Pole System was deployed; one being a garment hanging pole you may have seen at stores and one with two legs who is not above sticking out his middle finger, but only to be funny and, to me, way cuter. The MQH is still in recovery mode and visits to the GP House are still up in the air. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we can visit my darling Granddaughter this weekend.

With the finish of these three KFC quilts since January, I am saying Happy Epic Ending because I do NOT want to make another big quilt nor handquilt nor hand piece. My plans for this year was to make smaller quilts and maybe there still time I can do this for the remainder of 2025. Is it me, but the year is going by fast, right?

My big apologies for being very late in responding to comments with all that is happening  and the latest being I really need a new IPad. Demando has been given the assignment of deciding which one to buy or if I am going to inherit his IPad Air. Either way, I’ll have an attached keyboard which will be way more convenient than using the keyboard I have now and may help me sending responses out quicker.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT